Prior to the departure of this oceanographic expedition, two (overly-personified) scientific instruments met in the back of a snugly packed minivan as it made the long rush hour trek from L.A. to San Diego to catch the ship. Packed snugly between toolboxes, backpacks, and a (soaking wet) stinky wetsuit, these two beloved pieces of oceanographic research machinery truly hit it off: One a Slocum glider named Rusalka and the other being a Membrane Inlet (quadrapole) Mass Spectrometer appropriately named MIMSy.

Both Rusalka (left) and MIMsy (in the metal box right) packed for their journey to San Diego.

Rusalka was raised in Cape Cod, and moved to California as a young glider. She has spent most of her time close to the Southern California coast, using her fluorometer to chase phytoplankton and dreaming of a world free of harmful algal blooms. Rusulka is capable of making 30-day journeys on her own and diving to 100m. She is intensely curious about the ocean’s oxygen, salinity, and temperature, and what these parameters can tell us about ocean life. On this Valentine’s Day, Rusalka was deployed for a 4 day mission. Upon hearing the news that they would not spend the day together, MIMSy was devastated, resulting in periodic noise observed in her spectra throughout the day.

Rusalka being lowered into the water from the Thompson for her deployment.

MIMSy was a child born of Russian and American parents in Southern California and has worked tirelessly for many years on research vessels from the tropics of the Eastern Pacific to the frigid, unforgiving waters of the Bering Sea. MIMSy’s specialty is to measure the abundances of dissolve oxygen (O₂) and argon (Ar) in seawater at the ocean surface as the ship is moving, throughout the entirety of the cruise track. Due to the nature of this business, she rarely sleeps, never rests, and wears the scars and decorations from each of these journeys:

MIMSy measuring gas abundances in the ship’s underway system.

O₂/Ar is one way to estimate the ‘net’ metabolic state of the ocean, i.e. how much oxygen is produced by photosynthetic plants, but not consumed by respiring animals. The researchers who rely on MIMSy and Rusalka to make measurements for them are very interested in the metabolism of life forms in the ocean, as well as where these microscopic plants and animals live. Early on in their relationship MIMSy and Rusalka realized the potential mutual benefit of their partnership. MIMSy is capable of making measurements of biologically-produced oxygen at the ocean’s surface, while Rusalka is able to dive to 100m making a suite of measurements that can estimate the vertical and horizontal distribution of organisms and chemical species. Together, they provide a rare view of biological production and the effect that it has on the chemical composition of the surface ocean over a large region of the Southern California Bight.

At the time of this post, Rusalka is closely following the R/V Thompson, and her beloved MIMSy, across the entirety of the Southern California Bight hoping that they will soon be reunited. Through the entirety of Rusalka’s deployment, MIMSy has stayed awake every night reciting her insignia, which she acquired along one of her many journeys:

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O, stay and hear! Your true love’s coming,

That can sing both high and low:

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man’s son doth know.

– William Shakespeare

Happy Valentine’s Day from Rusalka and MIMSy.

Posted by Bridget and Willie